


More Important Things

by TinCanTelephone



Series: Rest a Little While [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Cassian has insecurities, Draven is not a dick, Established Relationship, F/M, Hoth, Lots of Angst, Sickfic, and Jyn worries a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 23:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15520656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/TinCanTelephone
Summary: Cassian's struggling on Hoth, and Jyn's been worrying. Cassian wishes she wouldn't- there are more important things to worry about than his cough.But Jyn's never been good at listening to Cassian.





	More Important Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoverKelevra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoverKelevra/gifts).



> A _long_ overdue gift of sorts to @rover-kelevra for unwavering support of all my sickfics ([Danger Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843790/chapters/26736528) in particular) that I'm always convinced no one will read <3
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely and talented @thegiddyowl

The sun never really comes out on Hoth, but two weeks into their residence on Echo Base, there's a break in the storm and the clouds thin out. The sky gets so bright Cassian can almost imagine the sun, squinting at the bright light coming through the open door of the hangar. By Hoth standards, it's a beautiful day. 

The rebels are taking advantage. There have already been two snowball fights, a sledding expedition, and now there's a group gearing up to go ice skating. Jyn and Bodhi are among them, blades slung over their shoulders and saddling their tauntauns. Cassian is not, standing off to the side in a slightly warmer area of the hangar with his face buried in two scarves (one of his and one of Jyn's). He's been nursing a cough for the past week or so, and Jyn convinced him to stay in. 

She finishes with her tauntaun and comes back over to him. "You're sure you're okay? You don't want me to stay with you?"

He shakes his head. "You should go. It looks like fun." It does, and he's a _little_ jealous, but as Jyn reaches up to adjust the scarves around his neck he has to turn away and cough. And he can admit it doesn't sound so good– rattly and thick. It bothers him at night too, so he's been exhausted and off his game. Draven threatened him with medical leave a few days ago when Cassian had to step out of a meeting twice to cough in the hallway. 

Jyn was in that meeting, and he knows she's thinking of it as she fiddles with his jacket, reluctant to let him go. 

"I'll be fine," he says, although his voice rasps through his throat. He swallows and tries to clear it, but it sets off another coughing fit and he has to turn away again. "It's nothing I haven't had before."

Jyn frowns, and on second thought Cassian supposes it's not the most reassuring thing he could've said. 

He squeezes her hand. "I'm okay. I promise."

"Okay." She presses on her toes to kiss his cheek, then runs to follow Bodhi and the others into the cold. 

Cassian watches until the hangar doors close, then makes his way back to the intelligence offices. If he's stuck indoors, he might as well get some work done and the offices are small enough that they're pretty well heated. Usually. Today they don't seem quite as warm as usual and he feels chilled even with his jacket on. He can't say he gets much done in the end. The hard bench seat makes his back ache and soon his head is throbbing– a steady, relentless pulse that's worse when he coughs. 

Draven finds him in the middle of a report due three days ago. He's only wearing a thermal vest, but doesn't comment on Cassian's parka. "I thought I might find you here."

Cassian tries to blink his vision clear as Draven sits across from him. "Sir." His voice is rough, but he doesn't dare clear his throat.

Draven glances at the datapad. "Any progress?"

Cassian swallows a cough. "Some." An exaggeration at best. He's hardly written anything since he sat down, and he's really not sure what he has is of a quality he could turn in.

This is probably evident as Draven reads over the his last couple of sentences. He doesn't relinquish the datapad when he's done. "Perhaps you should let your sergeant finish this."

"I can do it." Jyn hates writing reports. Besides, he _can_ do it. He just needs to pull himself together and _focus_. 

Draven shakes his head. "I'll give it to Erso." He stands, taking the datapad with him. "You're relieved of all duties until further notice. And before you ask–" He silences Cassian's question with a glare before he can ask it. "This is not medical leave."

Cassian nods and sits back. 

"Although it may as well be." Draven stands in the doorway, looking at Cassian carefully with an expression that sends him back to when he was seventeen and trying to walk out of the medbay on a broken tibia. "Be careful, Andor," he says. "You know how these things can escalate."

Then he's gone. The datapad with him. 

At a loss, Cassian stands and drags himself back to his quarters. He barely manages to pull off his coarse fatigues and thermal layers before collapsing into bed, the mattress swaying under him. It's still mid-afternoon and he's never been one to nap, but he's been so run down– maybe it'll do him some good. 

It's hard to get comfortable, every position seems to dig into his ribs and he still can't get warm, even under the extra thermal blanket Jyn stole for him two nights ago. And despite the shivers, he can feel sweat pooling at his neck and under his arms. Nothing makes sense and he feels _terrible_. 

He tries to relax, to take a deep breath, but he just ends up coughing again and he can't muster the energy to cover it, just directs them to the ceiling where the sound bounces off the walls.

He doesn't want to be worried– doesn't want Jyn and Draven to be right. He was telling the truth when he said the cough was nothing new. He has brief, vivid memories of being this sick or sicker when he was a child on Fest, when he still lived at home with his family. 

He remembers Mamá rubbing his back as he sat in his small trundle bed that pulled out from underneath his brother's, coughing and shaking and burning up with a fever. It was snowing outside– but only lightly, and Andrés and Isobel had gone out to play. Cassian had cried because he couldn't go with them, and it all felt terribly unfair. 

He doesn't remember being a particularly unhealthy child, but coughs have never been terribly foreign to him. He thought he grew out of it somewhat, perhaps with access to Alliance-grade prophylactics and without Festian winters, but he was still reminded of it every once in a while, when a cold went right to his chest or when he spent too long around dust or smoke. 

The worst time was when he was fifteen, and he returned from a mission to one of the lowest levels of Coruscant feverish and wheezing. He spent a week in the medbay trying to shake an infection that wouldn't let go and fretted the entire time about disappointing Draven, about seeming weak, or unworthy. But Draven was strangely gentle with him, questioning the medics and listening seriously as they described his condition and medications, allowing him more than enough time to convalesce when he was released. 

Cassian supposes this is what Draven was thinking of when he said, _You know how these things can escalate._

But he doesn't think this is like that at all. He doesn't think he's been working too hard, and the air on Hoth is clear. It's not so bad. He'll rest and be better tomorrow. 

 

He wakes when Jyn returns. One of the thermal blankets fell off while he was sleeping and she's replacing it. He relishes the weight of it and reaches out, although the cold makes his skin prickle. Jyn catches his hand and presses it in between her palms, much warmer than his, even though she's just been outside. 

"Draven gave me your reports to write," she says.

"I'm sorry," he says. It's a whisper, because his throat feels scraped raw and he's afraid he'll start coughing if he tries to force out anything louder. "You hate writing those."

"No. Cassian, no." She shakes her head. "You didn't say anything, and I thought you had finished them, otherwise I would've offered to do it earlier. You need to be resting."

"I am." His eyes slowly focus on her in the darkness, and he supposes the room must be relatively warm, she's shed her layers and the front hem of her shirt is crumpled where she's twisted it. It’s a nervous habit, he’s noticed, that she doesn’t bother to hide when no one else is watching. Lately, he’s seen her do it a lot. 

"I'm sorry." She lets out a slow breath and makes a visible effort to relax. "I'm just worried."

"Please don't be." She shouldn't have to worry about him, not when there are so many bigger, more important things. "I'm fine." After all, it's just a cough. He tries not to think about how he's slept all afternoon, but he's still so tired. 

 

He wakes up coughing three times that night, snapping to wakefulness with heavy lungs and phlegm in his throat. He falls into loud, violent coughing fits before he can stop them, and Jyn wakes up each time looking worried and tired. He hates that he's keeping her up almost as much as he hates that she's worried. 

The last time, she gives up her pillow and insists he sleep propped up on both of them. 

"It'll help your breathing," she says. 

"But– you–" He still hasn't caught his breath. _But what will you sleep on?_ he's trying to say. _You'll hurt your neck_ _without a pillow_. 

"I'll be okay," she says, rubbing circles on his chest and on his shoulders where the muscles have knotted and cramped. "Please try to relax. You'll feel better in the morning if you sleep."

_I'm trying to_. He is, he really is. _But you need to sleep, too._ In the end, he only says, "Okay," because his voice is wrecked and he doesn't want to risk another coughing fit. He's asleep before he finds the air to tell her anything else.

 

Jyn's already up and dressed and puttering about their room when he wakes in the morning, picking up clothes and gear strewn about the floor and storage compartments. His head is pounding again and his chest is sore. There's also a sharp pain under his ribs when he breathes too deeply, so he doesn't, just tracks Jyn with his eyes until she makes her way back over to him. Her brows are pinched with concern and she stops him as he tries to push back the blankets to get up. 

"Don't," she says, hand on his wrist. "Please just rest today, Cassian."

He finds himself nodding, although he's been sleeping so much he shouldn't be tired anymore, he should be going stir-crazy. But he just relaxes back into the pillows and lets her tug the extra blanket around him. 

"Do you want to eat something? I brought some breakfast back from the mess."

He shakes his head. He's not hungry. Quite the opposite, in fact. His stomach must be empty, but it twists at the thought of food and he squeezes his eyes closed. 

"Cassian?" Jyn's voice pitches higher and her fingers tense around his arms. 

He lets out a slow breath. "'M okay," he assures her. "Don' feel like eating." He's so tired that his words are slurring, and he just wants to go back to sleep. 

"When was the last time you ate something?"

"Don' know." Maybe mid-day yesterday? He can't remember. 

"Cassian, you need to eat." She has a bowl in her hands now, and a spoonful of something held out to him. 

He doesn't want to, he wants to push it away, but she's insisting, and he can't say no to her. So he musters his strength and pushes up on one elbow. He eats a few bites, but he can't taste it, and it sits so heavily in his stomach he has to stop. He suddenly feels so full it’s hard to swallow and he tries to breathe through the wave of nausea that crashes over him. 

Jyn tugs on his arm again. "Maybe we should go to the medbay." 

_No._ "I'll be– okay," he says. "Don't want– don't want to take up space."

"You won't be– what if you need it?"

"'S just– just a cough." He shivers. And a fever. "I'll be okay." _Just let me sleep_. 

She lets go and backs off the bed, although he can feel her eyes on him as he drifts off. He wants to tell her to please stop worrying, but he's almost asleep, and she wouldn't listen anyway.

 

He wakes again barely two hours later, coughing so hard he starts to gag. In a burst of adrenaline, he stumbles to the 'fresher to be sick, although there's not much to come up but three spoonfuls of breakfast and soon he's just dry heaving. Jyn kneels behind him, petting his hair and murmuring in his ear. 

She holds a canteen to his lips when he's done. "Drink this, Cassian, please."

The room is spinning around him so fast he has to grip her bicep to keep himself upright, but manages to drink some of the water, and it helps. As his vision clears and the adrenaline wears off, he starts to realize how badly everything hurts. Not just his head and chest, but all his muscles and joints are aching and sore as if he spent all of yesterday sparring with Chirrut. 

His heart starts beating faster as he realizes how truly fucking sick he is. He tries to take a deep breath to calm himself, but of course he can't and just ends up coughing into his lap. 

Jyn pulls his forehead to her shoulder and rubs his back. "Shh. Shh. It's okay. Calm down, you'll be okay."

He feels like a child again and he hates it– hates feeling small and weak and helpless– but he still leans into her loose embrace and counts the beats of her pulse to catch his breath. He's so tired he can almost imagine falling asleep like that, leaning into Jyn on the 'fresher floor. 

But she shifts out from under him as she feels him relax. "All right, come back to bed." She takes his hands as if to pull him up but freezes. "Cassian, we should go to the medbay."

He nearly groans aloud, too tired to be frightened by her change in tone. He still wants to believe it's not necessary, that he'll take up a bed that someone else needs more, but he's also picturing the walk to the medbay. Stepping slowly through the icy hallways, fighting dizziness and breathlessness. Even picturing it exhausts him and he’s not quite sure how he'll make it back to _bed_. 

"Cassian." Jyn's hands clench around his. " _Let's go to the medbay_." 

Her tone is so insistent he's not sure he could resist under better circumstances, so he braces himself and tries to draw on the strength he can feel in her fingers. "Okay." 

She breathes a sigh of tense relief. "Good. Good. Come on, get up."

He slowly climbs to his feet, closing his eyes against the vertigo and trying not to cough on her. 

Jyn helps him into his boots and jacket and parka, then leads him slowly out of their quarters and down the halls of Echo base. He leans heavily on her, and they have to stop multiple times so he can cough. He thinks more than once that he won't make it, that his legs will give out and he'll collapse and Jyn will wait with him in the corridor until medical finds them. She shouldn't do that. It's cold. 

 

Between his coughing and Jyn's snapping, they get the attention of medics quickly and he's pushed onto a bed before he can protest. The room still spins when he's lying down, then someone presses a mask to his face and he inhales and _oh, that's what breathing should feel like_. 

He closes his eyes and tries to take slower breaths, feeling his heart rate slow and the headache recede. No longer using so much energy to breathe, he feels his head loll to the side and his eyes slide closed. Kriff, he's so tired. He could probably sleep for days. He might fall asleep like this, boots still on and the buckle of his jacket digging into his hip. But then there's a flurry of movement as Jyn removes his outer layers and he's poked and prodded by medics for what feels like hours. 

Someone sticks a needle in his arm and he reaches blindly out. _Jyn, where's Jyn?_

He can't find her, then something cold starts to drip into his veins and he's pulled under. 

 

Everything becomes a blur after that. He sleeps on and off for longer than he can keep track of, on oxygen and too many drugs. He can feel Jyn fretting beside him, petting his hair and his hands and adjusting equipment around him. She talks to him, although he rarely finds the strength to respond. 

"It's this stupid base." She sounds like she's been crying. 

He wants to reach out again, touch her face or her hair but he can't open his eyes.

"We're all stuck in these tiny rooms with no ventilation." She sniffs. "And in between, it's so cold, no wonder you got sick." She's holding his hand, and her thumb rubs across the back of his fingers. "It's a strain of pneumonia. There are other soldiers here with the same thing."

He tries to ask if there are enough beds, if he's taken one from someone else, but it comes out muddled and muffled through the oxygen mask.

Jyn grips his hand. "And _don't_ say you shouldn't be here. They're doing outpatient treatment, too. They wouldn't've admitted you if you didn't need it."

That hurts even though it shouldn't, because Cassian _knows_ he needs it– for Force's sake he can barely _move_ – but it stings to hear the confirmation. He doesn't want to take up resources, he doesn't want to be a burden. And he feels helpless, because he's not sure there's anything he could've done. 

He keeps coughing. They prop up his bed and he spits green shit into a plastene dish and Jyn rubs his back like his mother used to. At some point, one of his ribs cracks from the force of it. He's so worn out he can't hide the pain when it happens, he cries out and curls around it while Jyn tries to ask him what hurts and more medics flood around his bed. 

When he's dozing under yet another painkiller he hears her yell at Kalonia. "Why is this happening to him? He should be getting _better_. Can't you _do_ anything?"

"We are helping him in every way we can." Kalonia's voice is smooth and calm. "You must have patience."

He can imagine what Jyn's face looks like, and hopes nothing breakable is within her reach. He wants to tell her she can calm down. It's not her fault. He'll tell her about the times he was sick on Fest, the infection when he was fifteen. He's just unlucky, but he'll be okay.

But his lungs still feel so heavy and he can't push the words past his throat, so instead he just squeezes her hand when she comes back to his side and interlaces their fingers. The only pressure he can exert is weak, but he knows she feels it because she responds in kind.

It's silly, because he knows she'll be there, sitting by his bed for longer than she should, but the answer in her fingers and her palm against his makes it feel real, and he can sleep well that night.

 

* * *

 

When he finally wakes up fully, Jyn tells him he's been there for three days. He's not sure whether that's longer or shorter than he expected. He thinks he feels better though, less achy and more alert, so when Kalonia comes around and takes the mask away, he asks if he can go back to his room. 

Jyn frowns. "I don't think so."

"I can rest there just as well." He does his best to make his voice sound strong, even though he doesn't feel it. But he desperately wants to leave the medbay– all the equipment and the drugs and sheets that never really warm up. So he meets Kalonia's eyes and tries to sit up straighter. 

She looks reluctant, but eventually sighs and says, "All right." She glances at Jyn. "As long as you're _actually_ resting."

"Oh, he will be." Jyn still looks unhappy, but she's not arguing. 

Kalonia nods. "I'll send someone to check on him every 24 hours or so."

_Every 24 hours?_ Cassian tries not to groan at this waste of resources and the prospect of more examinations where he has to be touched by unfamiliar hands and answer tiresome questions. 

But he accepts the terms without further complaint and before he knows it, he's back in his quarters, on his own bed and his own sheets that are soft and warm and smell a little like Jyn. She hovers over him as he gets settled, giving him extra pillows and arranging the bottles of medicine he's supposed to keep taking. 

 

The move exhausts him (as everything seems to) and he sleeps for the rest of the day and through the night. Then he wakes feeling restless and lethargic all at once, a disturbing combination that makes his mind feel unbalanced.

“Jyn,” he mutters, face still half in his pillow.

“What is it?” she doesn’t glance up, focused on the notes she’s taking on her datapad, but he hears her chair shift slightly closer to the bed. 

“Jyn.” He pauses to take a breath. And another, for good measure.

“Yes?” She turns her head this time, he can see through the slits of his eyes.

“What’s your favorite color today?” he murmurs. It’s a game they play in the middle of the night sometimes– when one or both of them can’t sleep– or sometimes on transports when they have to stay awake. Answering questions that ground them in reality and bring them back to the present. 

She shakes her head. “Go back to sleep. You should be resting.”

“’m not tired.” A lie. Fatigue presses down on him. His bones still feel like they’ve been replaced with duracrete, heavy and slow. “’m tired of resting.” He’s slept more in the past week than he had in the entire month before that, he’s sure of it. He doesn’t need more sleep.

“Too bad,” Jyn says, although she reaches out to stroke his arm and pull the duvet higher over his shoulder. “Doctors’ orders.”

Cassian sighs. If he argues or resists, Jyn will take him back to the medbay and he might actually lose his mind. He swallows, and tries to resist the familiar spiral of helplessness and frustration.

“’m bored,” he says, to get a rise out of Jyn and distract himself more than anything. “I want to get up.”

She huffs, and he watches her bangs flutter around her ears. “I’d like to see you try.” 

He doesn’t, because he’s tired, but also he doesn’t really want to move. He’s found a position where he can breathe best and he doesn’t want to lose it. Also Jyn looks so pretty in the light of his desk lamp from this angle. He half-wishes she’d just stay right there so he can stare at her, but smiles when she stands and leans over him, checking his temperature and running her hands up and down his back. 

He tries to roll over to see her better, but the movement makes him cough again. He turns away so he doesn’t cough on her and so she won’t see him grimace in pain as his sore ribs are jarred again and again. The broken rib is stabilized it and the medics assured him it was perfectly common, but it _aches_ even through painkillers and he can’t get a break. 

He can hear Jyn shushing him, her hands fluttering about his chest, as if she could will it to behave. She settles for propping him up on yet another pillow to ease the wheezing. (She must’ve broken into a storeroom somewhere– he doesn’t know where she keeps getting them.)

He tries to help her, but he’s too weak to do anything but get in the way. So he lets her do what she wants, and admits he’s marginally more comfortable when she’s finished. 

She steps back and bites her lip. “Are you sure you don’t want more medicine?” 

He might be a bit overdue for another dose, but he hates the stuff. It dulls the pain and helps him sleep but it makes his head feel heavy and his thoughts too loosely connected. 

So he shakes his head. No more medicine. He just wants everything to go away. He wants to crawl out of his body and not feel anything until he’s better. Not feel like a chore. Not feel like a burden.

Jyn’s fingers worry her shirt again, pulled loose from her trousers. 

He carefully unfolds one of his arms from the blankets and opens it across her side of the bed. “Come here.” 

To his surprise, she does, letting her unlaced boots fall to the floor and curling up against him. She presses her brow into his shoulder and takes a long breath. “You scared me.”

His chest lurches in a way that has nothing to do with the infection. It’s hard for him to imagine– Jyn Erso _scared_. 

“Your fingernails were blue.”

He closes his eyes. Her fear before he was admitted makes sense now, and he's so sorry she had to feel that way. “I'm sorry. I’ll be okay now.” His hand moves up to weakly grip her shoulder. 

"I should've realized sooner.”  

"No, no." This is not her fault. This was never her fault. "I should've gone sooner. I will, next time. I promise."

"You'd better." She presses herself still closer to him (careful of his chest) and despite his promise, Cassian knows that for the rest of his life she’ll drag him to the medbay if he so much as clears his throat. 

And he’ll let her– because as much as he hates to be a burden, he could never scare her like that again. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is an expansion of part III of [this tumblr post](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/175989100795/random-scenes-that-wont-amount-to-anything), if you want to check out the short version of this fic
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading/comments/kudos- I'm on tumblr as [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> Update: a ficlet in this 'verse from Kay's POV can be found [here](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/176884015145/emotion-n)


End file.
